At the Power 30 party sponsored by TikTok, conservative content creators encouraged new subscribers, dancing to top 40 hits for hours in Make America Great Again hats with TikTok-labeled earmuffs. At another TikTok-sponsored party at the Capital One arena Saturday night, conservative creators received company merchandise, like koozies with graphics of Trump dancing or earmuffs in pink and blue that highlight the company. (Behind the scenes, TikTok appears to be in turmoil. The app went offline on Saturday before the alleged ban, but returned Sunday and issued a notice assuring users that Trump would keep the app after taking office.) “One of the best parts of my job is spending time with YouTube Creators, because they really create culture,” Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, said in a statement after the company’s Creators Week. event. “He’s experimenting with new ideas in the media landscape, and it was amazing to have a front-row seat last year.” At Sunday’s influencer awards party, Trump campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz, architect of the winning influencer and online focus strategy. , received an award honoring digital contributions. The year before joining Trump’s team, Bruesewitz ran X Strategies, a political media agency, working with young online political candidates like Matt Gaetz. In 2022, he published Winning the Social Media War: How Conservatives Can Fight Back, Reclaim the Narrative, and Turn the Tides Against the Left, a book that instructs Republicans on how to use social media to their electoral advantage. a new war for us,” wrote Bruesewitz in 2022. “We have to fight, we will make them listen, and we will reopen “Bruesewitz saw the potential of podcasts to bring Trump’s message to voters who have not heard. Podcasts played a major role in Trump’s election, provided a large audience of what Bruesewitz described as “medium and low-propensity male voters” in a post-election interview. These voters, Bruesewitz said, did not typically use mainstream media, which secured the win: Shapiro told WIRED on Sunday that the podcast “gives a window into the authenticity of the candidates.” And according to Pearson, this year’s Conservative Influencer Takeover is just the beginning. Over the summer, Pearson held an event with the Heritage Foundation to train more than two dozen conservative creators on how to communicate with online voters. Savannah Chrisley, Sean Mike Kelly, and Emily Saves America, some of whom came out of the Turning Point USA ambassador program, attended the event. Since 2019, Turning Point has recruited and trained at least 400 conservative influencers in what is essentially an incubator. Some of the most popular influencers on the right have dropped out of the Turning Point program, including Alex Clark, Benny Johnson, and Candace Owens. The training usually takes place at summits held around the country where Turning Point leaders, like Charlie Kirk and Tyler Bowyer, teach participants how to deliver. Once an influencer is connected to Turning Point’s influencer program, the organization’s public relations team actively pitches it to producers at networks like Fox News. They are invited to special events where speakers (including Trump and Tucker Carlson) give speeches and allow creators to network and collaborate to increase their audience.
